Brodsky: An ethical crisis in New York

Published 12:55 am, Sunday, September 23, 2012

The ethical status of New York's public officials resembles nothing so much as the weather. Everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything.

There are reasons for the recent outbreak of lawbreaking and moral turpitude, reasons for the seeming lack of progress and maybe even reasons to try again to make things a little better. To get there, we will have to think differently, and with an open mind. That may not be as easy to do as one thinks.

Make no mistake, the vast majority of elected officials obey the law and observe higher ethical standards. And we shouldn't be deluded into thinking that there was some Golden Age of public morality. The recent spate of disgusting incidents is in keeping with the good old days of Tammany Hall, machine politics and personal peccadilloes.

In fact, what's happened in the public sector is mirrored by outbursts of lawbreaking in the private sector, from Wall Street to Main Street. If there's a loosening and decline of ethical standards, it's societal.

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So let's divide the problem in two: Sex and money.

Over the past 10 years in the tri-state area, several governors and a number of local officials and legislators have been credibly accused of, ahem, unusual personal behaviors, some consensual and some involving force or abuse. The Vito Lopez scandal is the latest and may be something of the straw that broke the camel's back in New York.

Also over the past decade in our region, at least one governor and a number of local officials have been convicted of financial corruption. Contract letting, old-fashioned graft and general misuse of public funds have become more prominent, if not more common.

What seems to be new is a pattern of self-dealing with legislatively appropriated funds intended to create local, community-based social service organizations, where public monies end up in the hands of the legislators who created them.

What to do about this sad reality?

First, let's remember the difference between criminal and unethical acts. In the midst of the call for tougher ethics laws, we've lost sight of the fact that almost every unethical act we read about already violates an existing statute. State, federal and local law enforcement agencies seem to have done well in finding and punishing lawbreakers. The highly charged debate about the state ethics law was interesting, but the new law is unlikely to affect the amount of illegal, stupid and appalling conduct.

Second, these incidents reverberate in a climate of genuine hostility and contempt for public institutions, particularly the state Legislature. The critique of the Legislature has gone beyond accusations of criminal or unethical behavior. The charge has been brought, and a conviction rendered, that the Legislature is dysfunctional.

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Late state budgets were the origin of the charge, but it morphed into a detailed set of procedural and substantive complaints. For the record, whatever legitimate criticism can be leveled at the Legislature, the specifics in these efforts were mostly off-base. Interestingly, the energy behind this came from the left — editorial boards and advocacy groups, mostly. Whatever their merits, the public attitude toward the Legislature is as poisonous as can be imagined, and the ongoing critique about l'affaire Lopez is heard in that context.

What we're left with is an outbreak of serious, unacceptable and mostly illegal acts on the one hand, and a sterile debate about disclosure and conflicts of interest on the other. Lopez's alleged actions (remember, he says the accusations of sexual misconduct are untrue) and the way that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver seemingly handled them (confidentiality as sensitivity to victims versus confidentiality to protect the institution) are real problems, with real victims.

The heart of the issue we need to address as a result is now left to the new ethics panel, JCOPE. How do we balance the privacy of victims against the public's right to know what's going on?

That's the first task, and with any luck, JCOPE can get this resolved soon. What should come next is a thoughtful exploration of the issues of criminal law, ethical standards, real versus perceived conflicts of interest, the role of political fundraising, compensation for public officials, and repairing the relationship between the people and their government. That discussion requires a calmer, more thoughtful environment than what we now have.